


Dean Winchester, Born on a Wednesday

by that_sea_sponge



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anger, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, sastiel? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-11-05 20:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17926142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_sea_sponge/pseuds/that_sea_sponge
Summary: Dean returns from a rough hunt.  The never-ending pounding in his head is taking its toll.





	1. After the Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> In lieu of some specific dates, the airdates of the relevant episodes were used. Takes place roughly between "Lebanon" and "Ouroboros"

_“Kid, stop it.” Dean hissed through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to-“_

_**Pop**. The gangly teenager’s arms flew away from the barrel of the gun and Dean’s body lurched backwards with recoil from the shot and the sudden loss of counter weight._

_“NOOOOO!” Dean reached towards the boy, but could not stop him from falling. The teenager fell to the ground, a sticky puddle oozing from underneath him._

_“Oh god, oh god.” Dean fell to the ground, searching in vain for a pulse._

The embattled hunter sat in his car, furiously shaking his head, trying to shake away the recurrent images. For two days now his latest hunt haunted him – flashbacks bringing up every sound, smell, triggering his body’s panic response. He’d stopped more than once on the last stretch back to the bunker, forcing himself to breathe before or after he vomited up his last meal. Finally, he’d stopped eating at all.

Baby shifted smoothly into park outside of the bunker. Her engine purred sympathetic understanding until Winchester had the strength to turn off the engine. He silently promised her a prime spot in the garage and a cleaning when he got his head straight again. It was a few more minutes before he could gather his things and approach the door to home. The hunt was clean, he reassured himself, but did not believe himself.

Dean slumped his hunting bag outside of the library door with a sigh. His head pounded with the force of an involuntarily incarcerated archangel and his body ached from the difficult hunt. He stretched his shoulders and heard a series of cracks along his collarbone that he could swear didn’t crack last year. He could, however, spare a smile for the sight of his family gathered in the library. Sam, Mom, Bobby, Cas, and Jack sipped at wine and seemed to be having pleasant conversation from the plush reading chairs.

“Tuesday,” Mary said with a sip and a nod. “Not too early in the week and not too late.”

Dean felt he used up some real life force to summon up his most charismatic Dean-o smile to hobble – swagger into the library. “Well, I wasn’t expecting a party, but I’m definitely worth it.” The group turned to beam at him. Worry, but relief etched on every face. It was the hunter’s welcome home.

“How’d it go?” Sam asked quietly and dutifully.

“Cake walk, Sammy. Standard issue Revenant.”

Sam nodded, but he still looked a little worried. Dean considered that he must look as old and busted as he felt. Mary handed her son a glass of red wine and he swirled it enthusiastically before plopping in the chair between her and Sam. This positioned Bobby and Jack across the library table and Cas was sitting on top of a low bookshelf behind him, chin propped up by fist. 

“We were just talking about the day of the week we’d prefer to die,” Jack announced cheerfully.

Dean blinked several times. Of course they were.

“Monday,” Bobby huffed. “Sleep in on the weekend and give the rest of the week a big F-U.”

Mary and Sam nodded, understanding the logic.

“Friday night,” Sam smiled grimly, but he declined to explain his reasoning.

“What about you, Cas?” Jack asked enthusiastically, looking over Dean’s shoulder.

Dean felt his chest seize and half turned to face Cas, but he looked at the drink in his hands instead.

The trench coated angel paused to consider the question without shifting his posture. “I died on a Thursday before and it seemed like an OK day.” Dean’s heart began to pound and he wasn’t sure why the whole room appeared not to hear it because it was just about all he could hear. He gulped his drink. That was not an OK day. _Noooooo! Broken angel wings impressed on sand._

“But, if I had to choose, it would be a Sunday,” Cas continued thoughtfully. “If Sunday was good enough for my father to rest, it is good enough for me. I mean, well, it wasn’t actually a Sunday, but, uh, you get the idea.”

“Symbolism! I like it!” Jack nodded enthusiastically. 

“Don’t be such a walking stereotype, Castiel,” Bobby chided him. Cas only shrugged in response, not allowing Bobby’s comment to faze him.

“I am my father’s imperfect son,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“Psssh. Imperfect? You think turning against Heaven and causing all of the angels to fall is rebellion? Let me tell you about the relationship I had with my dad sometime.”

The world began to swirl a little at the corner of Dean’s vision and he felt sweat pin-pricking his brow.

“Dean?”

Sam’s voice caused the elder Winchester to look up and see everyone frowning at him in concern. It was physically painful to get words past his chest “Yeah, I was just … sorry. Did someone say somethin’?”

“Jack was just asking you about your day.” Sam informed him.

“Oh, uh, you know, I don’t know. I’ll have to think on it. Look, I probably reek. I’m gonna get a shower.” He stood to leave the table, but not without seeing that his brother was plainly unimpressed by his dodge. Mary nodded maternally.

“Bobby, Jack, and I are going to run to town for supplies. Do you want anything?”

“Ahh, no, not this time.” Dean managed a weak smile and headed for his room. He made it as far as the hallway for the personal quarters before the world swirled enough to make him dry heave. The hunter slumped his forehead against the cool brick and tile wall, before turning and sliding his spine down to the floor. Sensing weakness, Michael roared curses and insane laughter in Dean’s mind. Dean wished for blackness, oblivion, whatever it took to make the swirling world and internal noise cease.

“It’s an anxiety attack,” Sam’s voice was of brotherly concern and patience.

“Try and hold your breath for a few seconds each time,” Cas offered helpfully.

_Dammit._ Dean hadn’t even heard their footsteps. He struggled to stand, but one knee wouldn’t work with the other and he collapsed against the wall. Wordlessly Sam and Cas each slid down the wall to sit on either side of Dean. He hid his face in his knees to still the dizziness and hide his shame.

“A cakewalk hunt, huh?”

“No.”

“Next time one of us goes with you.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean acquiesced. It had been a dumb idea to start with. Another dumb idea in a long string of dumb ideas that made up all of Dean’s dumb life. _A distracted hunter is a dead hunter._ Dean wasn’t sure if that was his father’s voice or Michael’s. Maybe both.

“Jack is sorry, by the way.” Castiel leaned slightly against Dean’s arm. “We were just…we were…inconsiderate.”

Dean shook his head slowly. _No, please don’t feel bad for a normal conversation. Don’t act differently because of me._ Dean tried to say this aloud, but all that came out was “It wasn’t an ok day.”

Sam sighed heavily and looked over Dean’s shoulder at Castiel. Castiel balked. “No Dean, I didn’t mean to imply tha-“

“You don’t know.” Dean was able to raise his head and open his eyes so long as he sat very still and stared directly at the tiled wall in front of him. “Mom and Kelly and Crowley and then you. Then there was Jack and Lucifer. All at once. I just couldn’t – I just-“.

“I know,” Sam clasped his brother’s shoulder, trying to psychically let him know that he didn’t have to say any of this right now or like this.

“No you don’t, Sam. I wanted to die, you know?”

Sam nodded, that much had been obvious.

“I wanted to die so bad, but I was too chicken to bite my gun. The only reason I’m here is because Billy wouldn’t have me.”

Sam processed the information quietly, a lot of pieces clicking into place. From Dean’s perspective, Castiel’s aura was...disgusted with his confession.

“Cas, I just couldn’t. You being….that was just one more, just one loss too many, one last festering mistake.”

Dean heard Castiel’s coat protest as the angel stiffened beside him. “Dean, I CHOSE to confront Lucifer. That wasn’t on you. I couldn’t let him corrupt Jack. I was angry and it was stupid, but it wasn’t you.”

Dean shook his head, not finding the words, only feeling stomach bile competing with his anger for his immediate attention.

“What happened on the hunt, Dean?” Sam quizzed his brother quietly.

“It was a kid, Sammy.” Dean breathed and burped involuntarily. “Just a kid. Eight, nine years old. Had an older brother who thought that he was helping by bringin’ the kid back to life. Thought everyone could be happy again. I’da done the same thing, if I were him. Hell, I have basically done the same thing,” Dean slammed a fist against the wall beside him. “But I took his baby brother and then, then he…made me take him too.”

Sam bounced his head against the wall once, beating himself for not insisting on going along. “Dean, I’m sorry.”

“Mom died on a Wednesday, Bobby died on a Friday.” Words poured out of Dean. “Sam you were stabbed on a Thursday and Cas, you died on a Thursday. I remember them all, I dream about them. But then _I_ get to come home to _my_ brother, to _my_ family who have _all_ died, but I got to keep mine. Because I’m just so. Damn. Special.” Dean dry heaved again. Dean felt Sam and Cas share a look over his shoulder. He didn’t know what they were thinking to each other, but he didn’t appreciate it.

“We all made our own choices,” Sam spoke finally. “That boy made his choice too Dean. You can’t ...control anyone.”

“Because I can’t there is a mother and a father who will never know what happened to their oldest son. They’ll never know what he did…what he tried to do for his family.”

“It’s better this way.” Castiel declared.

“Fuck you, Cas.” Dean regretted the curse immediately.

The angel sighed. “The alternative would be telling the boys’ parents that their oldest child turned their youngest into an undead monster before forcing a stranger to kill him rather than live with his own grief. You would know a little something about that, right Dean?”

Dean nodded. “You’re right, you’re right Cas. I just wish I could’ve told them how much he loved his family, what he was willing to do and how he just wanted everything to be like it was.”

“A kid like that…his family already knows.” Sam sounded definite.

“They’ll think he was a runaway.”

“For a little while,” Sam nodded. “Then they’ll understand that he was just... looking for peace.”

“Hmm.” Dean chuckled which renewed his nausea. “Peace.”

“At Cas’s bonf-...funeral, what was it that you said?”

Sam closed his eyes and summoned the memory. He smelled gasoline, cut grass, and the beginnings of rot. “I told Jack that when someone dies, you say thank you, that you hope they’re somewhere without sadness and without pain-”

“That they’re somewhere better.” Sam and Dean spoke in tandem.

“Yeah,” Sam nodded.

“Is heaven better, Cas?”

“Heaven is paradise, Dean.” Castiel spoke matter-of-factly.

Dean gulped and swallowed another dry heave. “Right. A paradise created by...happy past memories and the people in it aren’t real and you’re not really with your loved ones.”

“Dean?” Cas shot a worried look to Sam. “Heaven is -”

“A fake created by your soul to keep you...occupied for eternity. Well, that kid is with his fake little brother right now, probably playing catch with a fake dog in a fake dog park somewhere -”

Dean struggled again to stand so Sam and Castiel gripped each of his hands to help him stand and to stand up with him. Dean slipped his hand down Sam’s arm and squeezed his elbow before catching Castiel’s hand in both of his. “By the way Cas - I never said - thank you. For everything, I mean. I hope that...the Empty or where ever is somewhere without sadness,” Dean took a breath and felt refreshingly able to breathe. “And that it is better than here with us. Isn’t that what you meant, Sam? Better than with us?” Able to stand on his own now, Dean clapped both men on the shoulder with either hand.

“Yeah.” Sam blinked and nodded.

“But Dean -”

Dean made a waving cutting motion across his throat to interrupt his friend and gave him a look that he hoped meant _"later"_. He was able to slip into his room without assistance and bolted the slip lock behind him, leaving his brothers staring at his heavy metal door.


	2. Took Ill on a Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean falls into a restless sleep and Sam sleeps too well

"Shit!", Sam hissed, angrily scrubbing his scalp while Castiel stuffed his hands deeply into his coat pockets and scowled at the door.

Sam began walking away, but turned on his heels. "If you have to, can you open that door?"

"If I have to."

"Can you heal him, if you have to?"

"Anything that doesn't kill him instantly."

"Good, good." Sam nodded he started to walk away again before turning and wrapping both arms around Castiel in a tight squeeze. "Thank you." He slapped the angel on the back before releasing the hug and turning on his heels and setting off for a third time.

"But, Sam, if Dean loses consciousness-"

"I know, Michael takes over." Sam stopped walking, but didn't turn around. "I think knowing that is the only thing keeping Dean alive."

Castiel nodded to Sam's back.

"Cas...I know you don't like talking about it, but how do angels use their vessels? I mean, I know you don't need your vessel's soul, right? You prove that, but like, do you gain anything from inhabiting a body with a soul?"

Castiel fixed his jaw and lowered his eyes. "Nothing Michael appreciates."

Sam's shoulders sagged and he sighed heavily. "So, he has every incentive to somehow -" 

"That's what I would do if I were him...Sam about what you were saying, about when you burned Jimmy’s body-"

The younger Winchester frustratedly waved a hand in the air. "I promise we can talk about that, but not right now, ok?"

Cas nodded again to Sam's back and let him retreat to his own room. "Father, you did not create me to be a guardian angel. Smiting things is so much easier than getting grown men to talk."

Dean stared into his own eyes in his bedroom mirror, he could hear Sam and Castiel's muffled voices out in the hall, but couldn't make out what they were saying, not that he really wanted to. A blush rose in his face that crept from his cheeks to the the tips of his ears. "They're worried about you, you dick. You've probably got 'em thinking you're going to try to slit your wrists or somethin'." Unbidden, the face of that teenage boy rose again to the forefront of his consciousness. The empty hazel eyes and the moppish brown hair that he probably wore long to hide from everyone like Sam used to. Dean shook his head violently, chasing the thought away. "I wouldn't kill myself, at least not in anyway that would leave a body."

Dean's reflection winked at him. _I only need a few atoms of it_

Dean wheeled away from the mirror as if he had been struck. Terrified, his heart was pounding in his ears again and the room swirled so obnoxiously, Dean dove for his small trash can and expelled thick noxious stomach bile into it. The room slowed gradually, but the smell from his trash can was so sickening that he heaved twice more into it. "Oh god. Ugh," Dean wiped his lips with the back of one hand and then stripped off his shirt to wipe his mouth again and futility dab at the sweat from his brow. He unbelted his jeans while dragging himself to bed and couldn't quite manage them off before pulling himself up and across the narrow width of his twin bed. _This seems good enough_.

Dean once asked Castiel what he did at night while the brothers slept. He didn’t appreciate Castiel’s answer that the angel watched over them and their home. Winchester shivered and said that the whole idea sounded “too biblical” and recommended that Castiel “watch some movies or some porn or raid the fridge or somethin’” instead.

“You can do both,” Cas mused to no one, while eating dry chocolate cereal from a Ziploc bag and finding convenient reasons to keep passing by Dean’s room. He stopped just in front of Dean’s door and heard soft footsteps, with long intervals, coming towards him.

“Can’t sleep, Sam?” 

“Nah,” Sam answered as he came into view a few seconds later. His long hair was mussed and his t-shirt and sweatpants were wrinkled, probably from tossing and turning most of the night.

“How is he? You hear anything?”

The angel shook his head. “He’s asleep though.”

Sam had given up trying to define just what Castiel knew about the brothers and how he knew it a long time ago. Now he just takes it on faith that what Castiel says about his brother is usually the truth.

“You been out here all night?”

“More or less. I spoke with your mother for a while. She says to call her if ‘anything changes’.” Castiel spoke the last words with emphatic air quotes. 

“Ah.” Sam nodded and watched Dean’s door. He noticed the cereal in the angel’s hands and gave him a disapproving look. “This is stupid. You know? What are we doing, waiting for a gunshot? Dean’s not going to hurt himself, right? Not when there’s a chance that Michael could just use his body anyway.”

Castiel shoved his hands in his pockets and started to say something, but changed his mind. “You should sleep, Sam. We can talk to Dean in the morning.”

Sam shook his head, sending his unruly hair flying. “I can’t. I just start thinking about things.”

“I could help.” Cas offered. 

“I-I’m okay.” Sam lied, staring at the door.

“Sam.”

Winchester looked into Castiel’s blue eyes and saw the same, tired desperation to do something, anything, to help that Sam was sure reflected in his own. “Right. Ok. Do I, uh, have to do anything?“

Cas briefly imagined the chaos that would ensue if he left Sam asleep, on the floor, in the hallway, for Dean to find in the morning. “You should probably get into bed.”

“Oh, right.” Sam nodded and let Castiel follow him back to his room.

 

_“Dean! Take your brother out. Go!”_

_Dean felt the heat of flames before he saw his father kneeling on the floor. His eyes and lungs burned. “Dad?”_

_“Do as I say!”_

_Dean rushed into the room as he had so many times before. Flames raged above John’s head and ate away the ceiling, rushing down the walls. His much younger father was kneeling beside a grown, but unconscious Sam. Sam’s head was cocked at an unnatural angle._

_“Dad, what’s wrong with Sam?” Dean asked faintly, not wanting to get closer to his brother._

_“C’mon Dean!”, John Winchester implored._

_Compelled to obey, Dean finally entered the room and found the rest of Sam. It wasn't just his head that was askew. His arms and legs were as well. His skin was pale. As Dean’s eyes travelled downward, he saw the blood and the jagged openness of Sam’s chest, like he’d been bisected for an autopsy. Something you might have done, came the thought,unbidden._

_“What are you waiting for?” John begged, not aware of the viscera soaking his clothes._

_“Sam’s gone, dad.” Dean whimpered._

_“Do it!”_

_“Yes sir.” Dean swallowed a breath and held it. He knelt beside Sam and pulled at his arm, pulling Sam against him. Sam, and the rest of him, sludged against Dean’s chest, soaking him._

_“Dammit, Dean. Move!” John barked._

_Tears leaked from Dean’s eyes and his body burned from the heat. He sank to the ground unable to carry all of his brother. “Oh God…”_

 

Dean awoke with a painful gasp that caused his whole mattress to quake. His head was inches from the floor and bullets of sweat rained from his hairline. His lungs convulsed as disorientation set in. _Was that real? Is this real? Has Michael locked me up?_ “Sam? Sammy?” He pulled himself backwards over his bed and knelt, pressing his over-warm head against his bedcover. Michael roared with laughter and pounded against his enclosure. “Please, God, make him be quiet.” _Please, Chuck, Kill me._ He forced himself to stand and wobbled to the door. “Guess you’re not in the prayer answering mood.”

The bunker’s hallway was cold enough to make Dean shiver as he made the trip to Sam’s room. As he got closer, he could see a blue glow underneath and around the partially closed door. With a few more steps, he could hear his brother’s labored breathing. Wishing he had a gun, Dean quietly widened the crack in the door.

All of the room’s normal lights were out, but he could see clearly. From the doorway, Dean could make out Sam laying on top of the crumpled blankets on his bed, and the source of the glow was Cas. Castiel was sitting on the edge of Sam’s bed. Coat off and shirtsleeves rolled up, he was using two glowing hands to cup Sam’s face. There was a soft glow from Castiel’s closed eyes that illuminated his and Sam’s equally blissful expressions. A fainter glow spread out from Cas’s hands, down his brother’s throat and into his bare chest. As Dean heard his brother’s breathing intensify and lessen, he was run over by the realization that he was watching something deeply intimate. Part of him wanted to cover his eyes and another part of him wanted to yell.

He didn’t have a chance to do either as Castiel released his glow and his brother’s face. The angel turned to Dean and cocked his head in silent question as he rose from the bed. “Hello, Dean. You look troubled.”

Troubled was a bit of an understatement. Castiel thought Dean looked angry, disgusted, embarrassed or even betrayed. Dean’s face fought to form words as he gripped his forehead with a shaking hand. The angel spared a look towards Sam, collected his coat, and pushed past Dean and out the door. He leaned back in to pull the door closed behind him and Dean.

“Your brother is ok.” Cas assured Dean as he slipped back into his dark brown coat. “He’s sleeping very, very deeply. Dreaming, in fact.”

“Yeah? Dreaming about what?”

The angel was about to answer truthfully before he realized Dean’s accusatory tone. “Dean?”

“What the hell were you doing?”

“I was helping him sleep. I could help you too.” Castiel took a step towards Dean and Dean took a shaky step back. 

“No thank you, I never ride in the second car on a train.”

Castiel cocked his head again, annoyed with himself that he didn’t understand his friend’s reference. Dean was flushed and shivering at the same time. “You’re not well.”

“No, no, I’m having dreams about dead kids and Sam being disemboweled. I’ve got an archangel denting the insides of my skull and I just walked in on my brother and my - his -” Dean gestured up and down Castiel as his words failed him. “And you, doing some kinky angel shit. I’m not well.” 

Dean took another step back and stumbled. Cas swept forward and grabbed his waist before he hit the ground. Though the angel is generally impervious to hot or cold, he knew instantly that Dean was fevered to the touch, far too fevered for a normal human. Dean went slack in Castiel’s arms.

“I’m taking you to the infirmary. Dean?!”

“Hmmm?”

“I need you to talk to me. What is your name?”

“....”

“Where are we?”

“Home.”

“What day is it?”

“Friday?”


	3. Died on a Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean reveals his plan to secure Michael. Sam and Castiel face losing him.

Sam awoke with a deep breath and a smile. He lazily rolled over and pulled himself out of bed, shoulders not making any creaky complaints for the first time in months. He took the time to pick out a clean pair of jeans and a shirt that he always thought he looked pretty good in before he finally noticed that, on the nightstand, his phone’s message indicator was blinking. He swept it up, hoping for good news, instead he read Cas’s text “We’re in the infirmary”. 

He made it around the bunker’s bends in record time and found himself in the infirmary. Dean was laying awake on an exam table, dabbing his forehead with a towel. Cas leaned against a countertop, arms folded and sullen.

“Oh there he is. Sleep well, Sammy?”

“Actually, very well.” Sam smiled at Cas who did not meet his eyes. Dean made a dismissive snort.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve got some sort of fever.”

“Not just a fever, Dean. You passed out.”

“In any case, you need not concern yourself with me, Sam. Run along and write in your diary or whatever.”

“What’s your problem with me today?” Sam rounded to his brother’s bedside.

“He saw me in your room last night.”

Realization slowly spread across Sam’s features. “Dean, whatever you think you saw-”

“I know what I saw.”

“Kinky angel shit,” Cas explained with air quotes.

Sam threw up his hands in exaggerated concession. “Fine! You got me! Cas and I have been having a torrid affair for months. We’re together every chance we get, it’s actually disgusting. Why are you so pissed?”

Castiel raised an eyebrow, suddenly interested in the conversation again.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Sam answered for his brother. “This fever has broken your mind or something.”

“Maybe it’s meant to,” Castiel mused. “It’s got to be Michael. Maybe it’s meant to get Dean’s mind so warped that he hurts himself - “

“Taking him out of the equation.”

“It’s working then,” Dean confessed quietly. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think. My head hurts so bad, my eyes are shaking. I’m so angry, so depressed, I can’t keep this up.”

Sam pursed his lips worriedly. “What if you knocked him out?”

“I’ve thought about it, trust me.” Castiel glared at Dean. “Anything I do might put him under too deeply and give Michael a chance. Then there is still the fever that might legitimately damage his brain. I’ve been healing him, but it keeps creeping back up. We need to find a better way to hold Michael.”

“Cas, can you please just stop talking? I’ve been listening to it for hours, no years now.” Dean was pressing his fist to his forehead in obvious distress.

Castiel snapped to attention. “You know what, Dean -” He cut himself off with a clack of his teeth and turned to Sam. “That vial on the counter is Dantrolene. Start it in an IV and call me the next time he falls on his ass.” In the past, he would’ve settled for flying from the room or turning invisible, but now the best he could do is square his shoulders and march out without looking back.

“I’m not sure now is the best time to alienate the angel, Dean.”

“He’ll be fine. I just needed him to leave so I can think straight.”

“You could just ask.”

“Since when does he do what I ask? Anyway, ‘bout Michael, I had an idea.”

“Does your idea involve that box?”  


“Only as a failsafe.”

Sam squished his eyes closed and shook his head quickly. “I’m listening.”

“I wanna go in,” Dean tapped the side of his head. “I’ve got to reinforce that damn door. Like a twilight sleep or hypnosis or somethin’. Not unconscious, just not awake.”

“Ok. Let me go in with you. Or take Cas.”

Dean shook his head. “I need both of you out here in case...in case I don’t come out or if he does. That’s where the box comes in.” 

“You want to be in the box when you go under.”

Dean nodded. “If I don’t wake up or if I wake up with glowing eyes, I need you to slam that door shut, Sammy.”

Sam covered his eyes with his hands and then scruffed his hair. “Alright, alright. But let’s get Cas and Jack in on this.”

Dean shook his head. “Cas, maybe. After I’m under. I don’t want him trying to talk me out of this or, uh, making my head...worse. Jack would just get angry because he can’t help.”

Sam folded his arms. “When do you want me to pull you out?”

“Give me an hour. No more.”

Falling asleep and staying asleep has been a problem for Dean since he was 6. He blamed his four hour sleep schedule on his hunting lifestyle and most people bought that, even his dad or Bobby. The truth is, he knew that something horrible would happen if he ever truly slept. 30 some odd years later, this has become the literal truth. His body fought the light sedatives Sam worked up from a hasty internet search - “I wanted to be a lawyer, not a doctor, Dean”, his brother reminded him about a hundred times during the process. Dean went through a head pounding cycle of dozing off, jerking awake, and being angry enough to burn the world.

Soon enough, his eyes starting dropping closed like a camera’s shutter, catching pictures of the world outside Dean’s head. *Click* Sam looked worried and worked out math on a pad of paper. *Click* Sam was sitting on the infirmary counters, staring intently. *Click* Castiel was directly in Dean’s vision, inches from Dean’s face. He looked sad. *Click* Castiel was leaning on a counter and Sam was whispering in his ear. *Click* They were laughing quietly. *Click* It was Castiel’s turn to whisper. *Click* Sam and Castiel’s foreheads briefly touched as they shared a louder laugh. _When did that start? That was our thing._

The next time Dean opened his eyes, he found himself in a dark, blurry, hazy room. His eyes adjusted quickly and he recognized the grimy bar as the one Michael created as Dean’s prison. Now it was Michael’s - for as long as it would hold him. The room wasn’t hazy, Dean realized, it was smokey. Smoke was billowing under the door to the bar’s walk-in freezer. Dean’s eyes watered from the smoke and the smell...like burning flesh on a funeral pyre.

“I know you’re out there!” Michael called, from the freezer, in a sing song voice.

“Whatever you’re doing in there isn’t going to work, you dick!”

“It’s already working.” Dean’s own voice spoke back.

Dean rounded the bar and touched the door to the freezer, only to immediately withdraw it with a hiss of burning skin. Dean wheezed and coughed. Michael slammed against the door, causing Dean to jump back. The door bulged outward. The hunter desperately looked for anything to fortify the door. The kitschy bar decorations wouldn’t be any use. All he could find were some bar towels he stuffed along the door’s seal to hold back some of the smoke.

Michael roared with laughter as Dean coughed harder. He pounded against the door and Dean felt himself convulse with each impact. “I’m not going to die here, like this, Michael.” Winchester could barely see through tears or breathe through the congestion dripping down his face. “I’m not going to die, so that you can ride around in my body and hurt the people I care about!”. Dean realized that was a lie as soon as he said it. He thought he had more time. He thought, if he were here, there would be something he could do.

  


“CAS??!!” Sam stood helplessly as Dean’s body shuddered against the floor of the Ma’lak box, at times nearly folding in half, like a book being snapped shut. Dean gasped as if he were under thousands of pounds of water.

“I don’t know, Sam.” Castiel frowned, not able to get close enough to lay hands on his first friend. “Maybe it’s Michael or it could just be his body shutting down.”

“Do something!” Sam shouted as much for himself as for the angel.

Castiel looked as indecisive as Sam felt. He frowned and his muscles strained as he weighed whether interfering or not was the right choice. No, Sam corrected himself, Castiel looked as though his angelic self was trying to physically pull away from Jimmy’s mortal body. Finally, Cas’s eyes lit and he lunged toward Dean, catching Dean’s head between his hands on an upswing. “You will not take this vessel, Michael.” Castiel’s hands began to glow brightly enough for Sam to shield his eyes.

  


Dean gasped and choked on the swelling and fluid in his throat. His eyes rolled back as the whole bar began to glow. _Well, whadda ya know, the light thing is true._

  


“DEAN!!!” Sam pounded against Castiel’s chest, but the angel may as well have been a steel wall. 

“Sam, please.” Castiel never wanted to restrain either Winchester. “Sam! Please! Stop. Please stop.” Cas’s voice grew quieter, but no less insistent.

Sam stopped struggling and pulled himself away from the angel. He spun himself around the room, feeling as though his whole world was being swept away in a cyclone. He looked over Cas’s shoulder to Dean, lying still inside that awful, ugly metal coffin. His big brother was covered in frothy spit and snot and his features were slack.

“No. Nonononono! Not like this, C’mon Dean.”

“Sam.” Castiel’s voice was faint, as if coming from another world.

Sam let out one long gasp and whimper before he turned and fled the room, the angel calling him to wait. Castiel watched the younger brother until he disappeared around a bend. He let out a shuddering breath as he turned to see Dean. It briefly occurred to him that he never noticed when he started shuddering or feeling like breathing was necessary. “Dean. I’m sorry. I thought we had more time…” Overwhelmed, Castiel forcefully pulled the lid on the Ma’lak box and beat his own retreat.

Sam slammed his bedroom door and fell onto his bed. He could barely breathe and he couldn’t erase that image of Dean no matter how hard he shook his head. He knew he should call his mother and Jack and Bobby and the rest of the hunters. He knew he’d have to tell that story dozens of times. How he watched his brother suffocate on his own fluids and how Sam didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t take control. He let his big brother walk to his death alone. _Not just my brother. My real father and mother. My hero. The one person on this planet who could take care of me whether I needed it or not._

Sam grieved for his brother before, but he never felt quite as useless and complicit in Dean’s death before. “I’m sorry, Dean. I - I…” Sam felt an anger rising in his chest that was pushing past his gasps for air. It clawed past his throat and burst from his mouth. The rage bounced off of the four brick walls and there was nothing Sam could do about it. It echoed and reverberated and took all light from the room. Unable to see, Winchester fell back onto his pillow, his head clinking against the metal that always hid beneath. Dean was the one who taught him to keep that there. In case the night bumped too loudly.

The younger Winchester reached underneath his pillow and retrieved the cold, silver .38 handgun. It had also been a ‘gift’ from Dean, stolen from some monster’s body when the boys were still boys. A long time ago, several deaths, in fact.

Sam remembered Dean describing Heaven, “a paradise created by happy memories and the people in it aren’t real and you’re not really with your loved ones”. If he had to choose one memory, which would it be? Sam ruminated as he pulled back the slider on the handgun.

  


Castiel climbed the bunker’s stairs and, once outside, climbed the stairs to the power plant that concealed their home. He was winded by the time he wound the stairs to the roof of the power plant, but not because of the physical exertion, though the power he’d expended on Dean was considerable.

Castiel tossed aside his coat and yanked off his tie and he paced.

“Is this it?” Castiel shouted to the sky. “What the hell was the point of THAT? What meaning is there? All of those years - a lifetime of fighting - earned The Righteous Man an brutal, meaningless death trying to stop YOUR creation! You could’ve - you SHOULD’VE…” Castiel’s pace quickened. Unbidden, he heard the memory of Naomi’s voice.

_“You're the famous spanner in the works. Honestly, I think you came off the line with a crack in your chassis. You have never done what you were told. Not completely."_

“I did what I was told to do!” Castiel yelled as he paced and peeled off his suit jacket and tossed it aside. “I was dispatched from heaven to watch Earth and we were commanded to - to kneel to humans and to love them more than we love You. I’m the ONLY one who did that! It took being conned into taking charge of two wayward boys for me to really wake up, but I did. When do I get what I want?”

Cas’s voice caught in his throat. He’s never felt ‘want’ so much in his long, long life. He’s never felt ‘need’ on such a visceral level. Castiel listened around him and on Angel Radio. Not a sound, not even a gust of wind. Millenia of service, obedience, and trying to do the right thing didn’t even warrant acknowledgement. Of course not, he was too small, too damaged and unclean. He was ripped apart and put back together like a washing machine whenever it was convenient for someone else, but he didn’t deserve a reply. Not from Him.

The angel’s shoulders sagged. He was just a soulless tool that felt approximations of real emotion, a being the size of the Chrysler building stuffed so far and so twisted up inside of a human body he’d never be able to really stretch again. He didn’t mind it so long as he had the Winchesters - both of them. He was tired. 

_Maybe tired enough…_ Castiel stepped onto the smooth, brick ledge.

Sam took a gulp of air.  
Castiel exhaled slowly.

_Dean, I’m sorry._


End file.
